The Best Books I Read in 2018
Welcome to my “Best Books I Read in…” list, 2018 edition! Don’t forget to check out 2017 and 2016, too.
First, a quick reminder of how these lists work. I share books that I read in the year; not necessarily ones that were published that year. Also, these books aren’t the “best” in some literary sense. Instead, they’re the ones I enjoyed reading the most, or whose ideas had the biggest impact on me.
And with that, here are the best books I read this year.
Health
How Not to Die
How Not to Die is about…how not to die. Specifically, it lists the top 15 things that kill people. Then it recommends one simple thing you can do to avoid them all.
I know, it sounds impossible. But it’s not.
The author and his team at NutritionFacts.org do something no one else does — read tens of thousands of scientific papers each year to uncover what science says about nutrition and disease. And what they found is that everything that kills us stems from one root cause, and it’s easy to fix.
Together, How Not to Die and Why We Sleep (below) contain everything you need to know to maximize your healthy lifespan.
Why We Sleep
Why We Sleep presents bulletproof evidence that sleep is the most critical part of your physical and mental health. All of your body’s other systems — nutrition, cognition, immunity, ageing, and so on — depend on sleep.
Why We Sleep is a must read. It’s full of things you can start doing today to improve your sleep, and by doing so, every other part of your life, too.
Philosophy
Lying
Sam Harris is one of my favourite modern philosophers and his short novella Lying is a must read. I can’t recommend it more clearly than one of my Goodreads friends:
”A concise and convincing essay with a direct and clear message — don’t lie ever again, starting now — articulated well enough to intercept most (if not all) objections. The key weapon in Harris’ arsenal is the simple admission that few of us are ever in any situation where lying is necessary or beneficial, and yet we always make excuses to ourselves for our white lies.”
Great Thinkers
From the introduction to Great Thinkers:
“Great Thinkers gathers together the canon of The School of Life: it is our selection of the greatest thinkers from the fields of philosophy, political theory, sociology, psychotherapy, art, architecture and literature whom we believe have the most to offer to us today.”
If you’ve ever wanted an introduction to the most important ideas humanity has produced, and the great thinkers behind them, this is the book for you. The School of Life is exceptional at finding important ideas and making them understandable and useful in everyday life.
Tech
Creative Selection
“An insider’s account of Apple’s creative process during the golden years of Steve Jobs.“
This book is the real deal — an inside look at how Apple designs iconic products like the iPhone, iPad, and Safari under Steve Jobs. Spoiler: small teams and countless prototypes.
Economics and Sociology
Factfulness
If you ask smart people, like teachers, journalists, and investment bankers, simple questions about global trends, they think the World is bad and getting worse.
In fact, the World has never been better.
In Factfulness, Hans Rosling lists the ten big mistakes we predictably make when thinking about the World. These mistakes give us an incorrect understanding of the World, and that’s a huge problem. It affects how we think, vote, donate, and feel.
Dreamland
North America is now addicted to heroin, and Dreamland explains how it happened.
It’s two stories: one about how the pharmaceutical industry hooked people on OxyContin, and another about a little Mexican town that turns those addicts onto heroin when their Oxy prescription runs out.
The Corner
The Wire, one of the best TV shows ever made, is based on this book.
The Corner is a documentary of one year in inner-city Baltimore. It’s full of drugs, poverty, shootings, kids having kids, bad decisions, and systematic failures of individuals and the Government. But, these are real people, and their stories make for an incredible read.
Poor Economics
Billions of people are poor. Shouldn’t you learn why? I guarantee it’s not why you think.
Even if you’re not interested in poverty, philanthropy, and charity, you should read Poor Economics. First, you’ll learn how billions of people live, eat, work, love, and dream. Second, you’ll learn about the problems they face and how countless smart people have failed trying to help. And finally, you’ll learn how small changes can fix huge problems.
Nonfiction that Reads Like Fiction
American Kingpin
An idealistic middle-class college student becomes an internet drug-lord. American Kingpin has everything — drugs, weapons, Bitcoin, FBI corruption, and a kid who accidentally creates a place to buy anything online, even murder.
Bad Blood
A Silicon Valley prodigy does the impossible – creates a blood test that works with just a single drop of blood. CVS and Walgreens redesign their stores around the product. The company becomes worth billions. The CEO transforms herself into the next Steve Jobs — copying everything from his secrecy to his signature turtleneck.
It’s a Silicon Valley success story, until one journalist decides to figure out how the test actually works.
Shadow Divers
Two divers discover a submarine. It’s a German U-boat from World War 2. It’s 200 miles off the coast of New York City. The sub rests so deep that only the best divers in the world can reach it. No intelligence agency knows the sub’s identity or why it’s there.
Shadow Divers is exciting — full of suspense, mystery, obsession, and the meaning of life.
Fiction
Shogun and Taipan (The Asian Saga)
An English sea captain becomes a samurai. Two opium traders steal Hong Kong from China.
James Clavell writes epic historical fiction about East meets West in Asia. The stories have everything you want — adventure, conflict, passion, and the struggle for power. They’re genuinely epic must-reads.
